Nonlinear analysis using a reduced number of variables (Q1074385)

This paper investigates the possibility of taking a normalized set of correction vectors, derived during the normal course of a nonlinear analysis step using an appropriate iterative scheme (the modified Newton- Raphson method was adopted here), to be the basis vectors of this transformation. These vectors correct a linear trial solution to the nonlinear one, therefore must have contained the information concerning the local characteristics of the nonlinear behavior. Indeed they can be shown to be related to the more rigorously derived path-derivatives of the generalized load-deflection curve. They can be obtained just as easily in the presence of material nonlinearity, as well as for the purely geometrical nonlinear problems, which is perhaps the greatest advantage of this simple device over the more theoretical approaches.